Wood-to-chemicals pilot plant planned for Northern Ontario

In Canada, FPInnovations, a nonprofit specializing in creating scientific solutions to support the competitiveness of Canada’s forest sector, and Resolute Forest Products plan to develop a pilot plant to produce biochemicals from wood in Northern Ontario.

The $21-million project, dubbed TMP-Bio, is the next step in investments by Resolute, Ontario Centre for Research and Innovation in the Bio-Economy, and Natural Resources Canada beginning in 2012 to transform the region’s forest products industry. The pilot plant will be built at Resolute’s Thunderbay, Ontario pulp and paper mill. The company is contributing $3.5 million to the project.

“This project comes at a very opportune time as market interest for sustainably sourced green bio-chemicals and bio-fuels continues to build,”  FPInnovations says. “The development and availability in significant quantities of bio-sourced chemicals, such as the cellulosic sugars and high-quality H-lignin produced by the TMP-Bio process, is a key step in growing new market value for the forest products sector by connecting it to the bio-chemical supply chain.”